


Glittering Lights in Fair London Nights

by james



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-25
Updated: 2010-08-25
Packaged: 2017-10-11 06:12:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/109265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/james/pseuds/james
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the prompt "Ivan when posted to Earth [or] living in Vorbarr Sultana, being an Ops Captain - being quietly competent and observant without Miles, Gregor or his mother."   Set before "Brothers in Arms."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Glittering Lights in Fair London Nights

The thing about being assigned as the second assistant military attache to Earth was the boredom. Ivan had, in his time, spent a lot of hours sitting on his posterior doing as absolutely little as possible. That invariably involved being someplace where neither his mother nor his cousin Miles could see him, because both of them had the very same reflex at seeing him idle. He'd never decided which was worse, of course, his mother's chores or his cousin's _plans._

But here on Earth, half a universe away from Barrayar, Ivan was free to kick back and be just as damn idle as he cared to be. All he had to do was escape the Captain's sour graces. That was easy enough as long as Ivan got his assigned work done, whether it was feeding data disks into the computer or charming the young ladies at embassy parties and reporting on whatever conversations somebody else decided were worth remembering.

Neither of those tasks required much more than Ivan's barest effort. He'd been going to parties and being charming and witty all night since he was twelve, and he'd long since learned how to show up for work the next day with a hangover. Feeding data disks, on the other hand, didn't even require that he be conscious -- no one expected him to read what he was putting in, just slip one disk after another into the slot. A monkey could do it, and Ivan was well aware of the embassy gossip that named him as the staff's latest monkey. All of it meant that most of the time, Ivan was completely bored.

He loved it. Since the day he'd set foot on Earth's soil (plasta-crete, rather, but the thought was what counted) Ivan had not been shot at, arrested, threatened with arrest, or threatened with someone telling his mother, his uncle, or his Emperor what he'd done. No one had tried to talk him into doing anything that resulted in being shot, arrested, or told on. No one had looked at him with a gleam in their eyes and said, "What's the worst that could happen?"

Ivan still got nightmares of his cousin Miles showing up on his doorstep and dragging Ivan down into yet another insanely brilliant escapade. Safely out here on Earth, though, all he had to cope with was a superior officer who glowered a bit when Ivan slept through his morning alarm and had to be summoned to work from some lovely lady's bed.

Ivan didn't have the heart to tell Captain Galeni that his glower had nothing on Lady Alys Vorpatril's death glare. There was no point in encouraging the man to do more than issue a mild glower and a vague threat of adding paperwork to Ivan's duties. No, Ivan was determined to enjoy every last second of his boredom. He wanted to wring every last drop out of days with nobody shouting or shooting or sighing at him in that tone of voice. He went to sleep each night with a smile on his face and a loosening of his back muscles that he had never even noticed were tense -- regardless of whether it was his own narrow bunk at the embassy or someone's large bed with silk sheets, pressure-response mattress, and thick featherene duvet.

The trouble with boredom was that it did take some effort to maintain. Ivan had to guard against anybody assigning him additional work; he took care to let the data-feed job take most of his day so no one wandered in to find him idle all afternoon. He accomplished that mostly by simply slowing down the feed and reading what was going into the computer. Most of it was brain-numbingly dull, but Ivan found he was beginning to see patterns in the planet's agricultural economy, and the flight patterns of the tourists (Beta Colony ships arrived mostly in London's autumn season, no matter what part of the planet they were headed to. They left mostly in the spring, and very rare was the Betan tourist ship that stayed more than six months. How this related to Barrayar's interests wasn't Ivan's problem.)

Every once in a while a piece of information popped out at him, and he made the bet with himself as to whether the computer would ding for his attention. Six weeks into his assignment at the embassy he was winning nine times out of ten. None of the information meant anything, except to the personnel in marketing, tourism, or tax collection, none of whom had any need for Ivan to tell them their business.

The real trouble with boredom was that Ivan was a Vorpatril, which meant he was related to the clan Vorkosigan, which meant that the universe, while willing to ignore him for a while, would eventually find him and smack him on the nose with _something._

It started with a recurring pair of names on one of the the day-trip shuttle flights. The _Jolly Roger,_ a cheap tourist shuttle that flew between London and Jamaica, was normally the sort of thing that nobody on an embassy paycheck would bother with. But then Ivan saw the name _Tabor_ start to appear twice a week and, Ivan backtracked to double-check, always traveling with the same companion, Lady Isabella Winters of the Canterbury Winters.

Either Ghem-Lieutenant Tabor of the Cetagandan embassy was courting a young lady from London -- or he was up to something.

Ivan put his money on 'up to something' and dove further into the data. Tracking Tabor would be tricky, of course, since Tabor's own embassy would be keeping an eye out for anyone noticing what any member of the embassy was up to. Even if Tabor was simply dating the woman, Ivan shuddered at the thought of being so clumsy as to let _Cetagandans_ catch him spying on them. Investigating the young lady's movements was easier, first by simply keeping an eye out for occurrences of her name in public records, then visiting a public library console that didn't require an ID swipe to use. Ivan was careful to look up a variety of related searches, focusing on what sort of teas and wines he might buy to send home to his mother, followed by a short shopping excursion to a historical military replica shop to see about gifts home for his uncle.

One of the wineries was owned by the Winters family, of course, and the replica shop at which Ivan purchased a sword was located across the street from a tea house the young lady frequented with her girlfriends. All he deduced was that Lady Winters apparently _thought_ she was being courted, though as far as Ivan could tell, she had no less than three current suitors. Ghem-Lieutenant Tabor had his work cut out for him, Ivan thought smugly. He'd browsed through the newsreels and eyed the gossip columns and economics pages, and identified both of her other suitors as having more social standing, more family wealth, and, in Ivan's opinion, a lot more going for them in the classically handsome department as well.

Perhaps Tabor was working the exotic off-worlder angle. Certainly Ivan had found it worked quite well as a conversation starter, when he'd needed one.

After exhausting the easiest of the information gathering, Ivan decided his next step was visiting the Vervain embassy, ostensively to chat with the embassy secretary, Jenevive Larson. Ivan had taken her to dinner twice before, once at the suggestion of the Barrayaran ambassador to 'establish contacts' and once because Jenevive had been amazingly flexible, had an incredible laugh, and had made it quite clear that she had somebody waiting for her back on Vervain so anything she did on Earth was definitely temporary.

He'd timed his visit as casually as he could, in the neighborhood for something or other and did she want to go to lunch? She'd smiled and laughed and shut down her console, then taken his arm and let him escort her out.

Afterwards, she'd learned an awful lot about Barrayaran import/export duties -- all of which was available on any school com-console back home, so as far as classified information went, it hardly rated. Ivan made a mental note, of course, to report back everything he'd told her in case someone cared to know what the Vervain spy network was fishing for.

For his part, Ivan had learned that Lady Winters was the second daughter of a reasonably wealthy businessman, with a married older brother and a younger sister who, gossip believed, was the one who would inherit the company due to her common sense and sound business acumen. Isabella was the sort who liked parties and young men flattering her, and had a definite preference for imported blue _marya_ stones and traditional Earth diamonds.

Jenevive offered to introduce them at the next embassy party, smiling amusedly at Ivan's interest, and Ivan simply grinned and accepted the offer. Even if Tabor was courting her in earnest, well, a little more competition couldn't possibly hurt.

It left him with the question, however, of what Tabor could be up to, if he was up to something. The need for subtlety was still good, which meant he was going to have to consider his next move carefully. And, really, there was only one solution.

Ivan was going to have to go on a date.

~~~

Lieutenant Manetas leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk, and rubbed his forehead. It was a gesture Ivan had seen rather a lot, though usually it was being aimed at his cousin. Manetas was Galeni's assistant head-spy, and he'd just sat through Ivan's initial report.

"So, you're saying that the Cetagandans are looking to create a private space fleet?" he asked, still scowling like his head hurt and not looking at Ivan.

"Well, it's one possible theory," Ivan allowed. "I'm just pointing out that they _could,_" he clarified.

"Because Ghem-Lieutenant Tabor, one of the more junior members of a fairly small Cetagandan embassy, is dating an Earth girl."

Ivan knew how it sounded, but he nodded. He remained standing at attention, every detail of his uniform perfectly in place; partly because he wanted Manetas to take him seriously, and partly because he was hoping to get out of there early and meet up with Tresa for an early dinner. She had a thing for a man in uniform, and this week her thing was Ivan.

Manetas looked up at him and squinted. His hand tapped the data flimsy Ivan had brought him of his report, where he'd listed everything he'd done or seen or heard, making the conclusion obvious but not, of course, actually drawing it for his superiors in hard copy. Just the facts, in record, but when Manetas had asked him why he should bother listening to Ivan's report at all, he'd told him flat out.

"A private space fleet?"

Ivan shrugged.

Manetas sighed. "There had better be a good reason for this, Vorpatril," he said finally, and Ivan knew he'd been given the go-ahead to explain himself.

"Ghem-Lieutenant Tabor has been courting Lady Isabella Winters," he began, and Manetas nodded, impatiently. "They've been going to Jamaica twice a week, where they've been spending their time -- among other things, I'm sure -- visiting with Lady Winters' best friend, Charlotte Ramekin. Who is the only daughter and sole heir of Ramekin Shipwrights, and who has her mother's ear when it comes to who should be the next candidate for a new contract."

Manetas frowned. "And you think Tabor is hustling to get to the top of that list? It isn't like Cetaganda needs a secret space fleet, Lieutenant. Everyone knows they've got plenty of ships already."

Ivan was careful not to mention _Barrayar's_ private space fleet, certain that Manetas wouldn't have anything near the correct clearance to know of its existence. Ivan sometimes wished he didn't have, either. While he had no idea if Cetaganda knew anything about Barrayar having a private fleet, the precedence was there, even if only in Ivan's own mind.

Instead, he said, "It's the only motivation he would have for courting the young lady, and would explain the numerous visits to Ms. Ramekin. Amy says they never fail to meet with her when they're in Jamaica."

Manetas eyed him. "Amy?"

"The social scenes reporter I had dinner with," Ivan explained. Dinner, dancing, breakfast the next day. He'd gathered all the information he'd needed, along with a dozen more tidbits about minor celebrities and distant cousins of royalty that he'd never heard of.

"I see. And why, exactly, is this his only motivation? We're assuming he doesn't have a genuine interest in the woman?"

Ivan shrugged. "It's possible, of course. But...it would apparently be the first time since he arrived on Earth five years ago that he's shown an interest in a _woman._"

Manetas blinked at him. Ivan looked back, blandly. Manetas looked down at the flimsy in his hands with new interest. After a moment he looked back at Ivan. "And...mind, I'm not actually asking this, but there's reason to think your assertion is true?"

Ivan held back a sigh. "Amy," he said, by way of explanation. She'd been full of delighted glee at Ivan's interest, naming names and clubs that she'd seen Tabor at, off and on over the years. She'd never put any of the gossip in print simply because such a minor staff member of a very distant empire was beneath her readers' notice. Ivan had made sure to distract her attention from his interest in Tabor, which had resulted in his nearly over-sleeping and missing breakfast before heading back to the embassy.

Manetas, meanwhile, was looking at Ivan's report with new interest. "I see," he finally said, and he gave a truncated wave of his hand. "I'll have someone look into it."

Ivan nodded, and gave a salute. Whether or not anyone did take a look -- or whether or not they found anything -- was out of Ivan's hands. If the Cetagandans did want a private space fleet, then there were more Barrayaran spies between here and there to catch them at what they were doing. Ivan might not even get more than a 'no complaints' on his service review by way of acknowledgement of his efforts -- which was, after all, exactly the way Ivan liked it.

But it was possible, on the other hand, that Cetaganda did know about Miles and the Dendarii and were building their own sneaky way to get at him. And if Barrayar could throw a wrench into those plans, even just a little, well... Miles was his cousin, after all, and sometimes the hyperactive runt needed a little looking after.

Just as long as Miles never realised Ivan was doing it.

the end


End file.
